This report brings into light an emerging framework, with a new territorial unit for local initiative in the Czech Republic: the micro-region. It investigates the issues at stake in the development of these voluntary entities, that can be ...

This report examines the performance and potential of the various Czech regions, examines strategies and policies for fostering better regional peformance, and looks at the institutions involved and makes recommendations for their improvement.

This report assesses the strategies pursued by OECD member governments to address the competitiveness of regional economies and the accompanying governance mechanisms on which the implementation of these strategies rests.

The Czech Republic has registered relatively regular growth and attracted a high level of Foreign Direct Investment over its first ten years but territorial disparities between the fast growing capital city Region of Prague and structurally affected regions are increasing. At the dawn of EU accession, how can each region fully exploit its assets and overcome its handicaps? The Territorial Review of the Czech Republic analyses growth factors and obstacles to territorial development in that country, with specific recommendations in different areas. Thus, overcoming high unemployment, particularly in structurally affected old industrial regions, is linked to infrastructure priorities facilitating access but also to innovation through development of human capital, support to entrepreneurship and adoption of new technologies and processes. Obstacles to labour-force mobility such as the lack of a liberalised housing market are examined, bearing in mind the requirement to safeguard and develop social housing. The review takes into account the unique geographic location of the Czech Republic, in the heart of the new Europe, and the promising signs of development of major urban centres but also of medium sized towns acting as economic and service hubs for surrounding rural areas.

This 2006 edition of OECD's periodic review of the Czech economy finds that economic growth prospects have improved and that monetary conditions are good, but that much work is needed in public spending reform, improving the labour market, and ...

This book examines how the new forms of governance overcome administrative, political and financial obstacles and impact local prosperity and the quality of life.

The report highlights the diverse challenges facing rural areas, their unused potential, and the inability of sectoral policy alone to address these challenges.